100 Bottles of Beer - Beer at Home Goes DownSlope

Hello again fellow brewers! You all probably thought I forgot about you. Yes, I took a brief hiatus from the journey for no particular reason. I did take a vacation to Las Vegas for a week. I came back with $7 and a pocket full of change, whoo-hoo!

OK, we still have 37 beers on the shelf so let's get started by taking down four from Andy at Beer at Home. You may recall that at this point in the journey Beer at Home is now my home brew shop of choice since Highlander Home Brew closed. The following "kit" recipes came from the monthly specials that Beer at Home mailed out at that time, which was 1999 - 2001.

As previously reported, Beer at Home is still going strong with two locations in Englewood, CO and Westminster, CO; both suburbs of Denver. The big news is that Andy and Matt have taken the leap from brewing great beers to distilling amazing spirits, all right here in Colorado. Their newest endeavor, DownSlope Distilling, is off and running, producing some of the finest distilled spirits, vodka, rum, and whiskey in Colorado, the Rocky Mountains and the world. I have had the pleasure of sampling several of their fine spirits courtesy of their sales rep in the Colorado Springs area, Rick. Check them out at beerathome.com and downslopedistilling.com.

The first of our four recipes was the January '99 special, a pale ale which Andy called, Pale as the Baby New Year. The only change I made was the addition of the Irish Moss.

Pale as the Baby New Year

6 lbs LME

¾ lb 50L crystal malt

¼ lb Victory malt

1 oz Perle hop pellets (60 min)

½ oz Cascade hop pellets (30 min)

½ oz Cascade hop pellets (5 min)

¼ tsp Irish Moss (15 min)

Wyeast 1056 American ale yeast

Priming: ¾ cup corn sugar & ¼ cup DME

Heat the milled malts in one gallon cold water to 165F and sparge with ½ gallon 195F water. Add to 1 ½ gallon hot water already in brew kettle, add LME and bring to boil adding hops and Irish Moss at times indicated for a total 60 minute boil.

Cool the wort with an immersion chiller and pour into carboy with 1 ½ gallon cold water, topping to 5 ½ gallons with more cold water. The temperature strip on the carboy showed an ideal 72F so I pitched the yeast immediately.

I bottled this after seven days in the primary and over a month in the secondary. I do not remember why it was left so long in the secondary. It did settle out to a very clear beautiful amber color.

This proved to be very good pale ale. Nice amber color with minimal chill haze, acceptable for the style. It had an IPA-like hop bite with mild malt and alcohol presence. My notes at the time described it as a commercial American brew that actually contained some hops! - Imagine that! I would guess the ABV to be around 4-5%

Our next brew was the November '99 special and was called Honey Blonde Belgian. I took a few liberties with Andy's recipe this time, changing out the yeast and using a blend of two different wheat malt extracts. But the biggest change was the addition in the secondary of yeast cultured from a bottle of La Fin du Monde about nine months previously. For more on this, refer back to part 13.

Honey Blonde Belgian

3 lb M&F Plain Wheat DME 55/45

3.3 lb Briess Bavarian Wheat LME 65/35

1 ½ lb Orange Blossom Honey

¼ lb Honey malt

¼ lb Biscuit malt

1 oz Tettnang Hop pellets (60 min)

¼ tsp Irish Moss (15 min)

White Labs WLP400 Belgian Wit yeast

La Fin du Monde cultured yeast in secondary

Priming: ¾ cup corn sugar & ¼ cup DME

Add the milled malts to one gallon cold water and heat just until first signs of boil. Strain into four gallons water which has been heating in brew kettle and sparge with two quarts boiling water. Add extracts and honey and bring to boil adding hops and Irish Moss at times indicated for a total 60 minute boil.

Cool the wort with an immersion chiller and pour into primary topping to 5 ½ gallons with cold water. Pitch the Belgian Wit yeast.

The fermentation began within 12 hours and became so vigorous that at one point it foamed up and out of the fermentation lock. It took 13 days to settle down to the point I thought I could rack to the secondary. I added the cultured yeast by sanitizing both the top of the bottle and the opener and pouring directly into the beer in the secondary. The activity picked up again and continued for over two weeks before it was ready to bottle. I considered priming with some honey but decided to go with the corn sugar and DME.

This turned out to be a wonderful Belgian which aged very nicely. It was very clear in the bottle but developed significant chill haze. It had a definite Belgian flavor and tartness. It was darker in color than La Fin du Monde and had a much lighter ABV. Overall, a very good example of the Belgian style.

Our third brew was the December '99 special, Rudolph's Red Mild and I probably should have included it with the holiday brews in part 15. We could have had Yukon Cornelius meets the Terminator. If you don't get the reference, you need to watch more old kids Christmas specials. Off to the Island of Misfit Toys with you!

Rudolph's Red Mild

5 lb Amber LME

¼ lb Victory malt

½ lb Mild malt

1/8 lb Chocolate malt

1 oz Centennial Hop pellets (60 min)

½ oz Willamette Hop pellets (10 min)

White Labs WLP028 Edinburgh Scottish Ale yeast

Priming: ¾ cup corn sugar & ¼ cup DME

Add the milled malts to one gallon cold water and heat just until first signs of boil. Strain into two gallons water which has been heating in brew kettle and sparge with two quarts boiling water. Add the LME and bring to a boil adding hops at times indicated for a total 60 minute boil. Just before the addition of the Willamette hops at the 50 minute mark, add another two gallons boiling water to the kettle. This will thin the wort and improve the extraction rate on the hops for the final 10 minutes of the boil.

Cool the wort and pour into carboy topping to 5 ½ gallons with cold water and pitch the yeast. The selection of the Edinburgh Scottish yeast was a change from the English yeast in Andy's original recipe.

Ten days of steady activity in the primary and another two weeks of continued activity in the secondary, after nearly a month of steady activity it finally slowed to the point it could be bottled.

As the name implies, it was very mild with a red amber color and minimal chill haze. Hop bitterness was light but not very well balanced with the very light malt sweetness. Overall, this was a solid drinkable beer, good, but not great. Looking back at the recipe now and realizing there is less than six pounds total malts and extracts, it needed at least another pound of LME or DME.

Our fourth brew was the October special in 2001 and has decidedly Halloween Humor associated with it, FrankenStout! It's Alive! It's Alive!

I could no longer find the original recipe but my notes did indicate a few changes from the Mad Doctor's laboratory. I had a little fun with the Halloween theme in my original notes which indicates some of the changes. Here is an excerpt from my notes:

Since Igor at B-at-H only gave me 7 lbs amber extract instead of the 8 lbs listed in his recipe (he should be severely flogged for this grave omission) I added the abnormal ingredients of 1 neck-bolt (licorice), blood of eel (molasses), powdered skull-bone (gypsum), and weed-of-sea (Irish Moss). Believe me, there is some logic there. Also, Igor substituted the European yeast for the Irish variety called for in his recipe, who ever heard of an Irish Mad Doctor's Monster anyway. This ain't no LepreStout ya' know! What do you mean, "Then why use Irish Moss?" Irish Moss is sea weed, so let's call it "Creature from the Black Lagoon Moss" OK, now GET OFF! Happy Halloween!!

FrankenStout

7 lbs Amber malt extract (I did not note and do not remember if it was LME or DME)

8 oz Cara-Vienne malt

6 oz Karaffe malt

1 ½" Brewers Licorice stick

½ cup Blackstrap molasses

1 tsp Gypsum

1 oz Cluster hop pellets (60 min)

1 oz Fuggle hop pellets (30 min)

½ tsp Irish Moss (15 min)

White Labs WLP011 European Ale yeast

Priming: ¾ cup corn sugar & ¼ cup DME

Heat the milled malts in one gallon cold water treated with gypsum to 140F. Remove from heat, cover and let steep for 15 minutes. Strain into brew kettle with six quarts water heated to near boiling along with licorice and molasses. Sparge with one quart boiling water. Add amber extract and bring to boil adding hops and Irish Moss at times indicated for a total 60 minute boil.

Cool the wort and pour into carboy topping to 5 ½ gallons with cold water and pitch the yeast.

I bottled after seven very active days in the primary and another seven in the secondary. It cleared very well, was very dark brown and had a wonderful malty aroma. And the taste, WOW, a perfect balance of malt sweetness and hop bitterness, a coffee-like roast malt flavor, even the molasses made itself subtly apparent and there was a hint of licorice in the finish. I would guess the ABV to be about 5-6%. This was a very good, very complex stout. The doctor was pleased.

Well, that was the four I intended to write about this time around but it seems we have room for another. Let's see, looking down my list of possibilities I wanted to find an all-grain recipe since the last four were extract recipes. But, since we just did Honey Blonde Belgian, maybe Sweet English Blonde would be appropriate. This was an original recipe I designed as an experiment using rice syrup. I originally called it Dry English Ale but the final product screamed for a new name. Don't you just love screaming blondes?

Sweet English Blonde

6 lbs Munton's Extra Light DME

1.5 lbs Cooper Light DME

1 lb 5 oz Organic Brown rice syrup

2.25 oz Homegrown Brewers Gold whole cone hops (60 min)

.5 oz Homegrown Cascade whole cone hops (15 min)

.25 oz Glacier whole cone hops (5 min)

.125 oz Willamette whole cone hops (5 min)

1 tsp Irish moss (15 min)

WLP007 Dry English Ale yeast

Priming: ¾ cup corn sugar & ¼ cup DME

Bring four gallons cold water to boil and add DME and rice syrup, return to boil and watch for boil-over. I said, "Watch for boil-over, dumb-ass!"

OK, after cleaning up that sticky mess and getting the boil settled down, add the hops and Irish Moss at times indicated for a total 60 minute boil. Remove and sparge the hop bags with one gallon boiling water. Cool the wort and pour into fermenter topping to 5 ½ gallons with cold water and pitch the yeast. Original gravity was 1.062.

I bottled this after 11 days in the primary and 21 days in the secondary. I forgot to check the Final Gravity until after I had added the priming sugars. That reading was 1.020 for about 5.5% ABV, so I would guess the actual ABV to be about 6%.

This brew took about six weeks to develop adequate carbonation but at that point the head retention lasted all the way to the bottom of the glass. It was nice golden honey color with minimal chill haze. The rice syrup added more sweetness than I normally prefer but it was still very nice. It aged very well, the sweetness mellowed out as the carbonation level improved and the chill haze eventually went away. It darkened a little bit from honey gold to light amber. It was a bit too strong to be the "lawn-mower" beer I had anticipated but was a very good lighter summer brew. Rice syrup may rate a bit more experimentation, maybe in a wheat beer.

37 bottles of beer on the wall, 37 bottles of beer, take 5 down, pass 'em around, 32 bottles of beer on the wall...

That's where we are now, 32 bottles remaining. When we return I think we will talk about fruit beers.

Don't forget to check out beerathome.com and downslopedistilling.com and...

Keep on Brewin'

To be continued...